1.Dead,deceased,extinct,lifeless refer to something that does not have or appear to have life. Dead is usually applied to something that had life but from which life is now gone: dead trees.Deceased, a more formal word than dead, is applied to human beings who no longer have life: a deceased member of the church.Extinct is applied to a species, genus, or the like, no member of which is any longer alive: Mastodons are now extinct.Lifeless is applied to something that may or may not have had life but that does not have it or appear to have it now: The lifeless body of a child was taken out of the water. Minerals consist of lifeless materials.

Meaning "insensible" is first attested early 13c. Of places, "inactive, dull," from 1580s. Used from 16c. in adjectival sense of "utter, absolute, quite" (cf. dead drunk first attested 1590s; dead heat, 1796). As an adverb, from late 14c. Dead on is 1889, from marksmanship. Dead duck is from 1844. Dead letter is from 1703, used of laws lacking force as well as uncollected mail. Phrase in the dead of the night first recorded 1540s.

For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenail (c.1350).

Dead soldier "emptied liquor bottle" is from 1913 in that form; the image is older:

Dead man, or Dead marine, a colloquialism for an empty bottle, possibly in humorous recognition of the fact that the spirits have departed. But the French also have the same phrase, un corps mort, a dead body, for which there can be no punning pretext. [Walsh, 1892]